User talk:Cedges/Disciple of Criticals (3.5e Optimized Character Build)
More Ideas Hope this thread helps. --Ghostwheel 12:12, June 6, 2010 (UTC) : Ran very basic simulation on the build in that thread. It assumed you only miss on a 1 (due to having ramp-up time with a bag of rats for Blood in the Water or whatever). A loop is set up that will loop until the variable, vAttack, is 0. vAttack starts off as 6 and is a representation of the number of attacks remaining in the round. The simulation assumes that you have suitable ramp-up time to power up Blood in the Water, which means you'll probably hit on everything but a 1. So, whenever you get a roll higher than 9, it increments vAttack by 2 (Roundabout Kick + Lightning Maces). At the end of each iteration of the loop, vAttack is reduced by 1 and tAtk is incremented by 1 (starts at 0, total number of attacks done). After running the simulation for 1 minute, vAttack = 4260395 and tAtk = 21283849. So, you essentially have an enormous buffer of attacks, even after making an enormous amount of attacks. But, to be quite honest, whatever you're attacking? IT DIES. --TK 16:04, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :: This started from seeing roundabout kick and lightning mace in the complete warrior, and trying to abuse them by getting them to diverge. No matter how I read aptitude and roundabout kick, I couldn't make them go together. "A wielder who has feats that affect the use of a particular type of weapon ... can apply the benefits of those feats to any weapon that has the aptitude quality." I still don't think aptitude applies because being unarmed is a property of an attack, not a type of weapon. As far as I can tell, unarmed attack should mean fairly exactly "an attack with a weapon that is considered unarmed or with a natural weapon". Unfortunately the definition of unarmed attack isn't in a feat, so aptitude can't be used to make unarmed attacks with things other than unarmed or natural weapons, and I can't find any unarmed or natural weapons with a crit range higher than 20. Unarmed strike on the other hand is a specific natural weapon that is considered unarmed. Also, Disciple of Dispater doesn't stack with improved critical in 3.5, because improved critical's no-stacking text is a 3.5 change, and Disciple of Dispater's explicit stacking is 3.0. -Cedges 18:04, June 7, 2010 (UTC) ::: Disciple of Dispater specifically calls out it stacks with Improved Critical and Unarmed Strike is a weapon. --TK 18:42, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :::: Yep, but the Disciple's explicit stacking with Improved Critical is 3.0 and Improved Critical's absolutely no stacking is 3.5. If improved critical hadn't stacked in 3.0 then they would stack, but it did stack in 3.0. You could definitely argue it both ways, but the most strict is new 3.5 text always trumps 3.0. Unarmed strike is a weapon, but an attack with kukris or a flachion is not going to be an unarmed attack, and roundabout kick (as written in complete warrior) requires an unarmed attack. Unless there is another definition of unarmed attack somewhere other than in the PHB, an unarmed strike is a weapon and an unarmed attack is an attack with a specific property. Unarmed attack is used once in the very end of the monk's unarmed strike section, but in a way that would be just as true about any unarmed attacks. In the FAQ, unarmed attack is used where unarmed strike would be more appropriate, but neither it nor the errata redefines unarmed attack or says unarmed attack and unarmed strike are synonymous. The FAQ has some really confusing answers, like that a monk does her additional damage with a gauntlet because the gauntlet is an "unarmed attack". This would make more sense if the last monk paragraph for unarmed strike had used unarmed attack everywhere instead of just once. It gets really weird because to be consistent that would mean other natural weapons, since they are unarmed attack''s would do damage using the monk's "unarmed damage" table, but the example given here doesn't increase the natural weapon damage. However, that article is from 4/10/2007, and the FAQ entry for the gauntlet was added 6/30/2008. This could have interesting consequences for other builds (if that isn't just taken to mean weapons of the unarmed type). No matter what, none of these result in an aptitude weapon emulating an unarmed attack for roundabout kick. -Cedges 20:12, June 7, 2010 (UTC) ::::: On the other hand, when I looked to see what exactly an unarmed type weapon is in the weapon table, they are listed as "Unarmed attacks", so "unarmed attack" is also a weapon type. This makes the answers in the FAQ start to make sense. Unarmed Strike is a Natural Weapon which are Unarmed Attacks, and ''unarmed attack is simply an attack made with an "Unarmed attack" weapon; since they are the same two words and there is no explicit differentiation between uses we reduce them to a single idea used both to refer to a weapon type or any attack with that weapon type. An aptitude falchion can use the roundabout kick feat now because unarmed attack is a weapon type, and nothing says how particular particular must be for aptitude to work. A gauntlet is then a manufactured weapon and an unarmed attack, and if monks do extra damage with gauntlets they definitely do extra damage with natural weapons, but can't flurry with them because, although they are unarmed attack weapons, they are not unarmed strikes. -Cedges 20:12, June 7, 2010 (UTC) :::::: You keep going on about types. There is no 'unarmed type' weapon. An Unarmed Strike, as it is named, is a bludgeoning weapon. You're looking way to deep into Skip's Crack Articles. It's simply; an Unarmed Strike is not a natural weapon nor a manufactured weapon, but instead just a weapon everyone gets that deals 1d3 (m) bludgeoning damage. Furthermore, depending on the FAQ to tell you anything is just a recipe for disaster, since it's notoriously wrong. --TK 10:01, June 8, 2010 (UTC) Superceded I found something much easier to exploit than Sweeping Strike. The new build explodes at level 9, is pure 3.5, is far more versatile, and can move and attack in the same round. -Cedges